Gather ’round, children, and listen to a tale of the Good Old Days, as told by Pope Benedict nee Ratzinger. He’s a Man of God, so he obviously wouldn’t lie! You’ll remember that when we left off, he was about to tell us that

paedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil” as recently as the 1970s.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.

BY WHOM?

[By the way, it should tell you how stung the Catholic Church is over its loss of moral authority when the Pope is making excuses, in his Christmas address, for the fact that the corporation over which he is the CEO has become, in the words of Sara Benincasa, "the world’s oldest and largest child-fuckery concern."]

Moving on…

“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

When, pray tell, was this taught in any orthodox corner of Christendom? Please, senile former Hitler Youth child-rapist protector man in flowing robes and pretty headdress, ‘splain some more how back in the good old days, child rape was simply ”not the best option,” but certainly not evil.

The Pope said abuse revelations in 2010 reached “an unimaginable dimension” which brought “humiliation” on the Church.

I know, I know, it’s so embarrassing when people find out about this huge child raping problem the Church has, I mean, it was such a surprise and all, not least of which to the Pope. Oh wait. My memory’s not failing me completely yet, so let’s all remember another story.

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a priest in Wisconsin named Lawrence Murphy!  He used his position of power to rape over 200 children, but there’s a twist!  These children were deaf.  When the abuse came to light, at least in the inner sancta of the Roman Catholic Church, they of course defrocked him immediately and made sure he was never near a child again.  HA HA, JUST KIDDING:

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.

The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.

But, you see, it only became shocking, embarrassing and humiliating in 2010. Why? Because the child-rapists got caught, and Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope, is having to answer for the fact that he, in an official capacity, did everything in his power to protect what is apparently the holy right of priests to have sex with the kids in their parishes.

Here’s what the Church is doing in Wisconsin to make amends for distract local Catholics from the inconvenient facts about the 200 deaf children and the rape and whatnot:

Well, the Vatican has finally found it in its black (but gold-plated!) and shriveled husk of a heart to do something for Wisconsin: they’ve blessed a ghost sighting as genuine. Woo hoo! That’ll fix everything right up!

The church has declared that a sighting in 1859 of a blond Mary hovering between two trees was real and worthy, and the local Catholic church is now busily expanding their parking lot to cope with the expected influx of gullible suckers pilgrims who will flock to the site to imagine a floating cheerleader for Jesus.

No really. What had happened was:

…[O]n October 9, 1859, the Queen of Heaven manifested herself to Adele Brise in Champion (Robinsonville), Wisconsin, USA.

[...]

“As they approached the hallowed spot, Adele could see the beautiful lady, clothed in dazzling white, with a yellow sash around her waist. Her dress fell to her feet in graceful folds. She had a crown of stars around her head, and her long, golden, wavy hair fell loosely around her shoulders. Such a heavenly light shone around her that Adele could hardly look back at her sweet face. Overcome by this heavenly light and the beauty of her amiable visitor, Adele fell on her knees.

” ‘In God’s name, who are you and what do you want of me?’ asked Adele, as she had been directed.

“ ‘I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same. You received Holy Communion this morning, and that is well. But you must do more. Make a general confession, and offer Communion for the conversion of sinners. If they do not convert and do penance, my Son will be obliged to punish them’

“ ‘Adele, who is it?” said one of the women. ‘O why can’t we see her as you do?’ said another weeping.

“ ‘Kneel,’ said Adele, ‘the Lady says she is the Queen of Heaven.’ Our Blessed Lady turned, looked kindly at them, and said, ‘Blessed are they that believe without seeing. What are you doing here in idleness…while your companions are working in the vineyard of my Son?’

Oh, for god’s sake. The woman was either hallucinating or lying. Or on drugs. She certainly wasn’t laying the foundations for the the Vatican to, 150 years later, distract all the faithful morons from the fact that 200 DEAF CHILDREN WERE RAPED BY A PRIEST. PZ Myers ties this little fairytale up with a bow:

That settles it. It must have been a magical manifestation if it was invisible. Invisible and blond, just like I always imagined a Middle Eastern Semitic peasant woman. And the statement that you’re blessed if you believe without seeing is pitch-perfect Catholicism.

Dear, dear Catholics: Stop. Just stop. I know many of you are fervent in your desires to change the Catholic Church from the inside out, but until and unless the entire patriarchal institution — the celibate priests, the secretive power structure, the lack of women in any positions of power, and all the rest — is changed, this will continue.

As it stands, the Church, for this and many other reasons, is one of the most evil forces on God’s Green Earth, and no one with a sense of morality or dignity should support it.

This weekend, Pope Benedict visited Barcelona to do his Pope thing, and so several hundred gays and lesbians decided to make out in front of him.  I love this image [click to embiggen]:

If you’re in Spain this weekend, you should really be getting your lips ready for some same-sex kissy kissy, because look who’s gracing everyone with his presence:

Spanish gays and lesbians will welcome the Pope to their country at the weekend with a massive homosexual kiss-in in front of Barcelona’s famous Sagrada Familia church.

Organisers have invited gays and lesbians from around Spain to congregate in Barcelona during the papal visit on Sunday to form what, on their Facebook page, they call a ”queer kissing flashmob”. The plan is for participants to meet at the famous unfinished church and start kissing as the Pope steps out of the building. ”No placards, no flags, no shouting and no slogans. Only kissing allowed,” the Facebook page reads.

Yay!

Updated to reflect that this actually happened yesterday, rather than being “about to happen.”  Dang Google alerts.  It would be nice if they flashed messages that said “By the way, this alert is actually from an article three days ago, coffee-deprived blogger.”

I can’t imagine that this has never happened before, but hey, NPR says it’s news:

On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI will beatify John Henry Newman, bringing the 19th century British cardinal one step closer to sainthood.

Newman was a prolific writer and towering intellectual who converted from the Anglican Church to Catholicism — but one part of his life is something of a mystery.

His possible gayness!

“It’s not unreasonable to think he might have been homosexual,” says the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of My Life with the Saints. “His letters and his comments on the death of one of his close friends are quite provocative.”

That friend was Ambrose St. John, a fellow convert and Catholic priest. Newman described St. John as “my earthly light.” The two men were inseparable; they lived together for 32 years. According to John Cornwell, author of a forthcoming biography called Newman’s Unquiet Grave, St. John helped Newman

[...]

When St. John died in 1875, Newman was devastated. “I have always thought no bereavement was equal to that of a husband’s or a wife’s,” he wrote, “but I feel it difficult to believe that anyone’s sorrow can be greater than mine.”

Awww, they loved each other.

The article points out that Newman is the namesake for the Newman Centers which serve Catholic students at non-Catholic universities, so he was a very significant figure in the faith.

Of course not, silly! They don’t care about child rape victims!

The Onion, however, nails it here:

VATICAN CITY—Calling the behavior shameful, sinful, and much more frequent than the Vatican was comfortable with, Pope Benedict XVI vowed this week to bring the widespread pedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church down to a more manageable level.

Addressing thousands gathered at St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday, the pontiff offered his “most humble apologies” to abuse victims, and pledged to reduce the total number of molestations by 60 percent over the next five years.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” Pope Benedict said. “It seems a weakening of faith in God has prevented our priests from exercising moderation when sexually abusing helpless minors.”

“And let me remind our clergy of the holy vows they all took when they entered the priesthood,” he continued. “They should know that they’re only allowed one small child every other month.”

Moderation, you guys!

(h/t Amanda Marcotte)

Presented without comment:

ROME ‚Äî A senior Vatican priest, speaking before Pope Benedict XVI at a Good Friday service, compared the world’ outrage at sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church to the persecution of the Jews, prompting angry responses from victims’ advocates and consternation from Jewish groups.

(…)

Speaking in St. Peter’ Basilica, the priest, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, took note that Easter and Passover fell during the same week this year, and said he was led to think of the Jews.

“They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence, and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” said Father Cantalamessa, who serves under the title of preacher of the papal household. Then he quoted from what he said was a letter from a Jewish friend he did not identify.

“I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole world,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”

Yeah, I can’t imagine why people are so pissed off.

(h/t The Awl)

Brutal.

I find it grotesque that we still live in a world where religion is still assumed to have moral authority over us.

It is such a joke.

Here’s Hitch being interviewed by Bill Maher on Friday.

I wrote this morning about the new revelations in The New York Times that the man who now calls himself Pope was directly involved in, well, not really doing anything about a priest who had raped 200 handicapped children. Well, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League (of one) is vury vury angry, of course, at the Times for being so mean to the poor, poor downtrodden child rapists and their protectors in the Vatican hierarchy:

Media requests to deal with this subject make it difficult to provide an adequate response to today’s article by Laurie Goodstein. But the time has come to ask some serious questions about why the Times is working overtime with wholly discredited lawyers to uncover dirt in the Catholic Church that occurred a half-century ago. Those questions will be raised in an ad I am writing that will be published in next Tuesday’s New York Times; a rejoinder to the article will also be made. All I can say now is that this is the last straw.

I guess that in Bill’s mind, the act of a priest raping a child somehow expires after a certain number of years? “Oh, it was 1965, which means it didn’t happen! Cardinal Ratzinger? Never heard of him!”

Mean old New York Times! If they keep reporting on this stuff, the Vatican might actually start to feel a true sense of shame about what they’ve done,* and things could start to change in the Church! They might have to do something about their policies of celibacy, which encourage people whose sexual maturity is already stunted to pursue the priesthood, and they might have to do something about the patterns established by abusing priests recruiting abused boys into the priesthood, continuing the cycle, etc., ad infinitum, and without the child rape would it even be recognizable as the Catholic Church? What’s next, New York Times? Gonna ask them to get rid of Mary?

I thought not.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

MORE: TS at Instaputz has something to say about this, and it’s brutal: “Bill Donohue, Rape Apologist.”

AND EVEN MORE: Roger Ailes (the non-evil one) described Bill Donohue’s actions like this:

Shorter Bill Donahue [sic], Catamite League for Religious and Civil Rights:

If you rape ‘em young enough, by the time they grow up and overcome the shame, you can call it old news.

Is rape a religious right or civil right, Bill?

I have a feeling that as revelations continue to come out, the commentary is just going to get more brutal. People are fed up.

*Nah. Probably not. They’re not a moral institution.

I guess it doesn’t count if they can’t hear themselves screaming, is that right, Pope Benedict?

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’ chief doctrinal enforcer.

Read the entire thing unless you’ve eaten recently.

The man who is now Pope was more concerned about the church’s image than he was about 200 children being raped.

Unbelievable.

(h/t Thers)

This is so typical. Let’s get out our Right Wing Smear paint-by-numbers kit and see if this one fits:

1. Find honest statement by liberal.

2. Twist the meaning of the statement.

3. Repurpose the statement to make it look like an attack. Bonus points if you can add dogwhistles!

4. Raise a bunch of whining hell over nothing and try to draw blood. Bonus points for directly misquoting the liberal!

Yep, this fits! John Boehner, Brent Bozell, and some other minor figures are having a public sad over the fact that Harry Knox correctly stated that the Pope is hurting people in the name of Jesus by actively working against honest sex and contraception education in sub-Saharan Africa, and is thus contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS on that continent: (Read More)